Tag Archives: Abortion

When writers and editors are as committed to a political cause as the Washington Post’s writers and editors are committed to the cause of casual abortion, it becomes impossible for them to report on the issue with clarity. Their words get mushy and infused with bias, and their curiosity completely evaporates.

The Post’s Nia-Malika Henderson took to her keyboard again last week to attempt an explanation of the abortion controversy in America, and the results were predictable.

Henderson began by introducing a prominent figure in the abortion debate, Wendy Davis, the Democrat gubernatorial candidate in Texas who recently made headlines with her personal revelation that she has had two abortions: one that was medically necessary and another that was to end the life of a severely handicapped daughter. She quotes Davis on the latter abortion: “We knew that the most loving thing that we could do for our daughter was to say goodbye.”

Henderson must believe this is an effective and sympathetic quote in support of abortion on demand because she’s used it in two articles. But notice what an inaccurate description it is of what happened. Davis wasn’t a passive observer who merely said goodbye to a dying relative; she chose a “medical procedure” that would stop her daughter’s heart and end her life. Abortion is a life-and-death choice made by the powerful over the powerless, and the Washington Post does its readers no favors by playing along with abortion advocates who are trying to conceal this fact.

The Post’s pro-abortion bias continues with the way that leaders on the two sides of this controversy are portrayed.

Wendy Davis is presented as a courageous career woman who “[shot] to national prominence in 2013 on the strength of a 13-hour filibuster of the restrictive abortion laws.” Notice that although Davis opposes all restrictions on abortion, she is never described as pro-abortion or anti-unborn baby. She’s never given an ideological label such as “leftist” or portrayed as an ill-informed extremist trying to “frame” herself in a particular way. Instead, she is flattered with a portrayal that assumes her sincerity and mentions her national prominence.

Molly White, on the other hand, is a Texas Republican who has admitted having two abortions and suffering psychologically as a result. She opposes casual abortion, so Henderson promptly labels her “a conservative antiabortion activist.” Got that? She’s an ideological fanatic and a negative (anti-rights) activist.

Like Davis, Molly White is also nationally prominent and a hard worker on behalf of vulnerable women and babies, but she is not described that way in this article. The Post’s readers would have to do what I did– use an internet search engine– to learn about Molly White’s career.

The fact that many women suffer for years with regret and horror at the reality of what they did when they were younger is never acknowledged in this superficial piece. There is a mountain of evidence to prove this sad reality, but the Post’s readers would never know it. Instead, they are encouraged to dismiss a woman like Molly White because she merely “argues” that all women are emotionally traumatized by abortion. Readers are left to presume that this is a silly argument that fails to persuade thoughtful people.

When a woman chooses to destroy her own baby, often under duress, she is doing something that completely contradicts her human nature. It should surprise no one that many women pay a steep psychological price for this. It’s time the Washington Post made a serious effort to listen to them.

The Washington Post can’t be honest with its readers about what abortion is and why so many people reasonably object to it. They just can’t.

In an article over the weekend, Nia-Malika Henderson reports on Texas Democrat gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis’s revelation that she has had two abortions. Henderson seems to think that Davis is merely doing what conservative women have already done in reverse (Sarah Palin talked about choosing NOT to have an abortion) and courageously opening up the abortion debate for a more “nuanced” discussion.

What Henderson doesn’t see is that Davis’s admission is calculated and carefully wrapped in language designed to fool the public.

Davis admits having two abortions, and they were both for serious medical conditions: a threat to her life in one case and a severely deformed infant in the other. She describes anguish and dark despair over the decision to abort her handicapped daughter, and she deserves our sympathy for both of these experiences.

But look at the contradiction that Henderson doesn’t see. After agonizing over the abortion of a deformed infant daughter, what does Wendy Davis have to say, I wonder, about the millions of healthy daughters who are aborted every year just for convenience or sex selection? If Davis has no objection to abortion on demand (and she obviously doesn’t), how does she reconcile the nation’s epidemic of casual abortion with her personal anguish over a medically necessary abortion? Henderson never points out the contradiction.

The problem here is that Davis’s experience is not a typical example of abortion in America. In spite of the Supreme Court’s decision limiting abortion to the first trimester, abortion is legal in America at all times and for any reason. It is a method of birth control for many people.

Henderson continues to push the abortion lobby’s propaganda by trying to make Wendy Davis look like an abortion moderate. Although Davis famously took to the floor of the Texas legislature in pink running shoes to filibuster a bill that contained a ban on late term abortions, Henderson reports that Davis “has also said that she could support such a prohibition, if deference is ultimately given to the woman and her doctor.” Did you catch what Henderson missed? Davis supports a 20-week ban as long as it’s not really a ban. What a ban! What a moderate!

At the end of her piece, Henderson stumbles across an important truth, but she fails to recognize it for what it is. When this debate began 50 years ago, abortion was called abortion. But it wasn’t popular with the public, so the name was changed to “choice,” and then the public caught on again, so it was changed to “reproductive rights.” Now that is failing too, so we are pushed by opinion makers to call abortion “women’s healthcare.” Henderson recognizes that this is a “benign catchall” for abortion and contraception, but she never asks the obvious question. If access to abortion is a right and a legitimate part of women’s healthcare, then it ought to be a good thing, right? So why do we need a benign euphemism to conceal such a good thing?

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- Catherine II 1788
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- Barack Obama 2008
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"Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don't want to have too many of."
- Justice Ginsburg 2009
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